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To Mar a Stall
To Mar a Stall was the fourth episode of Fillmore! to be produced and the eighth to air. It was originally broadcast on November 16, 2002. Premise The ribbon-cutting ceremony for X Middle School's newly renovated restrooms is ruined when a tagger known as "Stainless" vandalizes all the stalls in the flagship bathroom. To try and catch the vandal, Fillmore and Ingrid enlist the aid of Randal Julian, an incarcerated tagger and brilliant artist whose reign of terror as "Flava Sava" was cut short thanks to Fillmore. Synopsis Act 1: Flushed Innocence An opening of brand-new bathrooms at X Middle Schools is occurring as President of the Bathroom Steering Committee Robin Spencer is being held. According to Robin, a middle school bathroom is one of the dirtiest places in the school, so thanks to the new renovations, they should make it a little less of a problem. However, when she shows them one of the stalls, she’s horrified to see them marred with graffiti all with the word “Stainless” on them. The Safety Patrol is called in to investigate, and Vallejo tells Fillmore that the window was open all night to ventilate the paint fumes, meaning the tagger could be anybody. At the Safety Patrol Headquarters, Vallejo says he wants this case finished before his weekend fishing trip with his dad, and wants to know where they’re at. Anza says that Stainless’ marker of choice is a red one, which is a match for the school-based ones, while Tehama reveals that she and O’Farrell could not find any matches from previous taggers, meaning that Stainless is a new one. When Ingrid asks if they could show the pictures to an expert for more help, Fillmore suggests Randall Julian. Even though everybody else reminds Fillmore that Randall is serving indefinite detention across campus, Vallejo allows him to go there as they have no other options. On their way to Randall’s location, Ingrid asks Fillmore who the former is. Fillmore explains that Randall was once a brilliant artist who won multiple awards with his macaroni collages. But then, Randall became Flava Sava, the most notorious tagger in X Middle School. He tagged every bathroom in the school except for the teacher’s lounge, because Fillmore and the Safety Patrol stopped him before he could. Once there, a teacher confiscates all their writing materials at the door, explaining that they keep Randall in detention throughout the school time, and feed his classes through a live stream. He also reveals that one day, a custodian dropped a golf pencil in Randall’s presence, and the latter scribbled all over the East wall in a matter of ten minutes. Meeting Randall, Fillmore and Ingrid show him the pictures of Stainless’ work for a lead, but the former is not interested in helping them. However, just when the duo was a bout to leave, Randall reveals that Stainless writes from right to left as opposed to left to right based on the overlay on the letters. Back at hq, Ingrid wonders why someone like Julian could turn into a tagger, but Vallejo doesn’t seem interested in that, before showing them a fly rod his dad ordered online. Then, Vallejo tells Fillmore and Ingrid to dig around and see if somebody has a grudge against the bathroom renovations. At Robin’s office, the two look through the files as she explained that she wanted brush steel stalls as they were impossible to deface with graffiti, but was ignored. Ingrid finds that an alternative art club was thrown out of their own building to make way for the committees’ office, leaving Fillmore to believe that they might have a grudge against the committee. However, neither member is at least angry at the committee; Frankie Pollok finds rooms to be limiting, Tommy Howard is more jealous over Stainless getting the attention, and Jean Grays doesn’t believe in indoor plumbing. Tahama calls Fillmore and Ingrid back to hq as she noticed something from the photos. One of them has the graffiti lighter than the others, and she believes that the red marker sprung a leak from the back. Knowing that the marker is permanent, Stainless must have red stains on their hands and wrists, and Fillmore realizes that they must need new markers for a refill. Fillmore and Ingrid confront Stainless at the art supply room and give chase. Once they corner Stainless in rubber cement, they unmask them to reveal that Tommy is the culprit. Act 2: A Smearing of Justice Tommy publicly and proudly admits that he’s Stainless and as Vallejo takes him away, Robin shows Principal Folsom the invoice for the new stalls. However, Folsom feels there’s no need to order more stalls as Tommy is busted. At hq, Vallejo finds a package that he thinks is his new fishing rod, but it turns out to be a prank from the Safety Patrol. Afterwards, Fillmore see’s the markers that were bagged from Tommy’s heist, and starts to think about it. Fillmore believes that Tommy isn’t Stainless as the markers they caught Tommy with were black, not red, and they found no trace of red ink on his hands. Vallejo points out that Tommy already signed a confession in being Stainless, Ingrid says that the latter wanted the attention and fame. Vallejo reluctantly allows Fillmore and Ingrid to continue the case in a lowkey fashion, and wonders why Tommy would smear his own name to get people’s attention. However, that comment gets Ingrid to realize something. She explains to Fillmore that a permanent marker leaves a wet residue from writing, but while right-handed people don’t have to worry about them, left-handed people drag their hands over the words while writing, leaving a smear. Fillmore gets the idea, and says that if a left-handed person wrote down something from right to left, then there would not be a smear. That causes them to realize that Stainless is left-handed. They return to Randall for more info, who believes that Stainless could be looking for a new target. However, he cannot figure out where even when Fillmore and Ingrid show him pictures of the fourteen newly renovated bathrooms. When Julian says he has nothing to gain from helping them, Fillmore and Ingrid offer him strict supervised access to art supplies for a chance to become a real artist again. However, that causes Randall to recall why he became Flava Sava. He placed first in seven consecutive fairs, but when he started placing lower, his following shrunk down to just his parents. Wanting to be remembered, Julian became Flava Sava and started tagging bathrooms until Fillmore stopped him. Randall tells Fillmore and Ingrid where Stainless’ next target is, but as they leave, a pencil drops right behind the former. As Fillmore and Ingrid stakeout the location, they see Frankie going into the girl’s bathroom. When they confront Frankie, they see that he isn’t Stainless, but rather, he’s drawing toilets for inspiration. They let Frankie off the hook with a mild warning to do his drawing in the boy’s bathroom, but when he enters it, he see’s Stainless has struck again, and based on the wet residue on the letters, it was a recent attack. However, Fillmore and Ingrid get caught in a toilet stream as Stainless runs away. Act 3: Caught Red-handed With Stainless now back in the news, an angry Folsom tells Vallejo that she had to release Tommy and okay the order for brush steel stalls, before threatening to close the Safety Patrol if they do not capture Stainless. Fillmore and Ingrid go back to Randall for more questions, but when they get there, the teacher horrifyingly tells them that Randall has escaped. They see that his room is covered in Flava Sava words, and Randall taunts them in a classroom live stream. HE plans to make sure the school never forgets him, but before signing off, he leaves them one last clue for them. Ingrid doesn’t see it as value due to it being a copy of last weeks newspaper, but Fillmore notices the headline showing a picture of Robin Spencer. Not only is she cutting a ribbon with her left hand, it has a glove on it. Returning to Robin’s office, Ingrid finds out that Robin tried to get brush steel stalls approved 43 times, but was ignored, and Fillmore realizes that in order to get her message across, she became Stainless by marking the stalls. Fillmore and Ingrid confront Robin as she’s supervising the delivery of the brush steel stalls, knowing that she’s Stainless in order to get her point across. Robin denies this, but Ingrid pulls her glove off to reveal a red mark on her wrist. Robin runs away from them, revealing that she will become the student that ends graffiti once and for all, and everybody will know her name despite her actions. As Fillmore chases her in a mail cart, he finds Vallejo’s fishing rod and uses it to stop Robin. With Robin caught, Vallejo is relieved that he can finally fish this weekend in peace, only to find out that he accidentally broke the rod when he came in the doorway Fillmore leaned the rod on. At hq, Vallejo explains to Fillmore and Ingrid that even though they caught Stainless, they also managed to cause the damage of brush steel stalls, ruined a month supply of macaroni, and allowed the escape of Randall. Fillmore manages to find Randall in the teacher’s bathroom, and asks latter why he would turn to crime with his talents. Randall wants to finish his masterpiece, but Fillmore says it isn’t a masterpiece, its graffiti, and that the library still has his macaroni collages up as those pieces moved people. However, Randall is still bitter about getting knocked down from state fair competitions, and plans to use his Flava Sava name to be known no matter what. Then, Fillmore challenges Randall to use his real name on the graffiti instead of the Flava Sava tag, knowing very well that the latter cannot do it because everybody will find out the truth out of a desire to become famous. Randall finds that he cannot do it, and drops the pen, fully giving up his Flava Sava persona. Happy about it, Fillmore tells Randall that he knows of someway he can get macaroni. Characters Trivia As Fillmore is telling Randy the vandal's history to Third, you can see a headline from "A Wurm In Our Midst", revealing that this episode takes place after that one. Category:Episodes